Alan NeSmith
Give me a few minutes to get still and I can sleep anywhere. After a full-throttle day of newspapering there’s no need for a pillow or comfy mattress. Just let me get good and still and zzzzzz.
Monday evening, I was instructed to get still in an awfully awkward position. And I nodded off. Then I woke up confused and wondered if I had been abducted by aliens. It seemed I was aboard the mothership and the universal joint was falling out.
After easing my left eye open, a bright light was glaring into my face as I found myself face down in a white tube. My right hand was reaching out, palm up, and it sounded like someone was banging on the cylinder with a framing hammer. I dared not move.
Seconds later, I gained a sound mind, figured out my predicament and still didn’t budge an inch. You see, I was enduring my first MRI. And was under strict orders not to move.
After being escorted into the room, I gave the Siemens MAGNETOM 3T MRI machine a long look. Then a sporty fellow with slicked-back hair wearing black Gucci shoes walked into the room and explained the process.
“Friend, I’m going to need you to lie face down with your right hand extended above your head and your palm up,” he said. “I know it’s going to be uncomfortable, but I have sandbags and wedges to hold you in place. And if you move, we will have to start all over again.”
Hmmmm … At this point I really wished I had taken better care of my right knee and elbow. Frankly, I would have rather been in a telephone booth with a bristled-up boar hog.
“Sir, how long will this process last?,” I asked.
“About an hour,” he said as he handed me two ear plugs.
Climbing up on the table, I lay down on my stomach and he wedged my head to the left and placed a sandbag in my right palm. Then the table moved into the tube and the thud, thud, back beat “music” began.
Next the whop-bam-fram erupted, and I wondered if the advanced technology machine was broken. But when the table didn’t go into reverse, I began trying to convince myself it was all right and tried to relax.
Zzzzzz.
My next birthday will bring another zero to the second digit of my age. On the drive home I remembered what an older friend told me one time. He said, “Alan, everything runs OK until you turn 50 and then the check engine light starts to come on.”
Painfully true.
Alan NeSmith is the chairman of Community Newspapers Inc. Reach him at 706-778-4215 or anesmith@TheNortheastGeorgian.com.